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Tuesday, October 26, 2010

I’ve received two interesting reports today. One, from Premier Farnell on a name change and another from The Information Network on the troubles of the semicon equipment industry.

First, Premier Farnell plc announced the launch of a new, market leading customer proposition in Asia offering a significantly expanded inventory of products relevant to electronic design engineers, next-day delivery in Asia Pacific and an enhanced range of services, under the name element14.

I have not quite understood this move!

I wonder how is this going to help Farnell! It has had element14 for so long now. Hey, I even provided Farnell feedback on the element14 website back in July 2009 (in Bangalore), and even discussed with its executives in Singapore when they sought further queries on the feedbacks provided by me.

What’s Farnell (or element14) really up to?At least, I don’t see any newness in Farnell’s element14 release. Unless, there’s a move to dilute the Farnell brand itself, which is and will be really strange!

I for one felt element14 was (and is) doing magnificiently as a standalone entity, and has done a great job in building a community of design engineers around itself.

The release also says that the Group’s businesses located in Australia, China, India, Malaysia, Singapore and New Zealand will be known as element14 and will offer customers and suppliers a multi-channel, multi-currency, multi-language way to source their product needs, quickly and easily.

So, I checked Farnell’s India site. Now, the India website of Farnell is confusing me. There’s a message on the site that says ‘Farnell Electronics (India) Pvt Ltd name change in progress’.

Where is the need to call Farnell by its original name in the UK, and why rename it elsewhere, especially in Asia? Is it that the brand name is not well known across Asia? What’s wrong in the first place with having two separate standalone and successful identities such as Farnell and element14?

It would be prudent on Farnell’s part to maintain element14 as the community it has been originally meant to be. For instance, why call Farnell India as element14 India all of a sudden?

I hope to hear from my friend, Ravi Pagar at Farnell soon, hopefully, in the morning. Have sent him the query. Name change or not, best wishes to element14/Farnell in its future endeavors.

Semicon equipment industry bubble burst?Now to the second one! I also received an interesting report from The Information Network — where it says that the global semiconductor equipment industry bubble has burst!

It has also made interesting use of an analogy around "The Emperor’s New Clothes," a short tale by Hans Christian Andersen and the global semiconductor industry.

The report has set me off thinking. Just how can the global semiconductor industry afford to not overlook repeated warnings? This is peculiar! What could be the repercussions of a deteriorating semiconductor industry? The Information Network also mentioned industry pushouts. How will these benefit the industry in the long run?

I hope to speak with Dr. Castellano regarding the study and get some replies on my queries.

What’s very interesting is a prediction made at the end of this report. The Information Network says that firms such as AMAT, AMD, APD, ASML, AVZA, CAJ, FJTSY.PK, HPQ, INTC, MU, NVLS, OMG, TOELF.PK, TOSBF.PK and other IC, equipment, and material suppliers have or will be announcing their results soon. “Nearly all will point to a slowing in the next quarter in their releases and conference calls. It will get worst in the following quarter!”

Wow! That will be significant! Hey folks, I’m going to watch all of these firms very closely as they annouce their quarterly results. Suggest, you do the same.